Summary
Highlights
On his journey, Issa Fofana passes Bunce Island, a former slave fort. To prevent revolt, slave traders intentionally mixed various African language groups, forcing enslaved people to communicate using a basic form of English, referred to as pidgin English. By the 18th century, pidgin English was so prevalent that it began appearing in British literature, exemplified by the character of Man Friday in Robinson Crusoe.
Many slaves were already speaking pidgin English before leaving Africa. The journey across the Atlantic, known as the Middle Passage, brought this pidgin English to the Americas. While some slaves were taken to the West Indies, where West Indian patois, closely related to Gullah and West African Creole, developed, the majority were brought to the Southern states of America. Charleston, South Carolina, was a major slave capital, and the pidgin English brought there became the foundation for Plantation Creole.
Enslaved Africans brought with them a wealth of African speech, much of which became integrated into American English. The expression "okay" is believed to have West African linguistic roots. Slavery profoundly influenced the speech of both masters and slaves, creating a new Black American culture. Plantation Creole, the English spoken in slave quarters, developed as a direct evolution of pidgin English. Professor J.L. Dillard is a key scholar who traces Plantation Creole back to Gullah and West African pidgin English, illustrating its grammatical structures such as the use of "him go" and the particle "duh" for continuous action.
The speech of old Black servants, like Martha Tweets, exemplifies Plantation Creole with phrases such as "I done gone" and verbs like "I goes." Martha, whose father was born into slavery, uses everyday language that is a direct descendant of Gullah and Plantation Creole. Her speech also incorporates African words like "voodoo," "banana," "banjo," and "tote," demonstrating the lasting linguistic contributions of African culture.
While house servants often spoke a form closer to standard English, they and their children retained basic traits of Plantation Creole. Over time, grammatical structures evolved, such as "him to go" being replaced by "him be go," and the "-ing" ending becoming obligatory, leading to forms like "he be going." Mary Shepard, an elderly Black cook, demonstrates typical pronunciations and syntax of Black English, using verb forms like "I rights" and "they gone." The speech patterns of enslaved Africans also significantly influenced the aristocratic Southern English accent, demonstrating a "black on white" linguistic exchange, with details of pronunciation in Southern white English matching Black English and even Africanisms.